YueXiu Park

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During one of my subsequent visits to Guangzhou (since it’s only 45 minutes away by rapid train) to meet with an old friend, I discovered YueXie Park while waiting to meet them near Xiao Bei metro station. It was only a short walk down the street where I spotted archways along the main road which shared the same name as the metro station. As always, my luck had me on the right side of the wide street to stumble across a large gate house by the road. I slowly entered to explore a bit to discovered this park that stretches between two main roads (Xiao Bei Lu and Jiefang Bei Lu) along Huanshi Zhoug Lu. I definitely did not have the time to cover the entire park but only got to wander through the east section of the tourist map.



My short excursion started at the East Gate and ended after passing the smaller amusement park (18 on the map) before I slowly made my way back to the East Gate. I did find a wonderful garden area surrounding a calm water lane-way that ran next to the Guangzhou Ming Dynasty City Wall (City Wall of Ancient Guangzhou). These calm waters contained life in the form of the ever faithful koi fishes which is one of the signs of prosperity and luck in China. Part of that small entry section was inaccessible due to construction to restore damaged areas by the lion’s share of the small lake (area 19 on the map). The simple green zone give a natural beauty to contrast the polished stone pathways and the steely colored stones of the ancient wall. This simple path leads to ancient structures that remain standing by sheer force of will and ancient architectural wisdom before dropping you at a more modern looking "haunted house”.





As I had been told before while in Jishou, this was a “ghost house” which seems very popular here in Chinese amusement parks. But this one like most of the rides was more geared for the younger visitors to this amusement park. The park only sported 17 rides but included at the back an open air exercise facility, old war relics that can be touched, and a series of stone animals (some nearly life sized) for posing with. All of these secondary area were surrounded by trees and bushes giving a very natural feel to this remnants of civilization like a mild post apocalyptic world you drifted through. I spotted some birds that slipped between the trees and one lone cat prowling around the water’s edge possibly looking for a fishy snack. I also discovered that the wall’s gate-house was built within the root-net of trees showing the long term balance between nature and civilization found in cities all around China.





This small slice was not the first time I’ve been in this specific park but my last visit was during a heavy downpour preventing me from taking photos of the other section by the Five-Ram Statue to South YueXiu Lake (areas 1 to 15 on the map) including the Five-Ram Fairy Court (area 4 on the map). Unfortunately time was not my ally that day as I need to return to meet my friends that were the reason for this short revisit to Guangzhou.

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